The transition of closing the gate was violent.
One moment, his body felt like it could move through stone. The next, the heightened state vanished, and the restriction snapped back into place with a force that left him gasping.
Satoru's knees buckled.
He didn't fall completely. His hand shot out, palm striking the trunk of the nearest tree. His fingers scraped against the rough bark as he desperately used it to keep himself upright. His legs trembled beneath him. He tried to take a step. His body didn't immediately cooperate.
He slid down the trunk.
Ended up sitting awkwardly at its base.
For several seconds, he simply stared ahead.
The fatigue arrived in waves. His muscles felt completely drained. His arms and legs felt heavy and weak. His hands trembled. His breathing became ragged. His chest rose and fell rapidly. A deep ache spread through his limbs.
Unlike the mild soreness he had experienced during rehabilitation, this felt like his entire body had been pushed far beyond normal exertion.
He realised something important.
The cost didn't happen while the Gate was open. His enhanced state had masked it. Now that the Gate was closed, the accumulated strain had caught up with him.
The birdsong that had seemed incredibly clear earlier now sounded distant. The forest felt strangely far away. The sunlight was uncomfortable against his eyes. A headache began developing behind his left temple.
His breathing gradually started settling.
He didn't try to stand immediately. He knew better than to force movement while his body was struggling to recover.
Once he could think clearly again, his analytical instincts returned. He wasn't surprised that the Gate had a cost. The scroll had explicitly warned him. What surprised him was the magnitude of the cost.
He calculated approximately how long the Gate had been active. Maybe two minutes. Perhaps even less.
His expression became serious.
Two minutes of enhanced performance had left him barely capable of standing.
He imagined activating the First Gate during an actual mission. He wins the exchange. The Gate closes. Then he becomes this physically compromised. If the enemy has surviving allies, if there is another opponent, if he has to retreat, if his teammates are injured, he may not even be able to move.
The realisation was brutally simple.
The First Gate could win a fight and still lose the battle.
He considered how an experienced enemy would respond. They wouldn't necessarily try to overpower him while the Gate was active. They could simply survive the burst. Wait for the Gate to close. Then attack.
The technique created a predictable vulnerability if used without an exit strategy.
His expression hardened.
He made another mental rule. Never open a Gate without knowing how the fight ends. Another: never assume the opponent will allow him time to recover.
His thoughts returned to the handwritten annotation. Especially the Second Gate example: thirty seconds of extreme speed. Three days unable to stand.
He had initially interpreted that as a warning about excessive use. Now he understood the warning differently. The Uchiha wasn't exaggerating. The exchange rate was genuinely terrible.
Three days.
He repeated the phrase mentally.
He compared it to what had just happened to him. If the First Gate could leave him this exhausted after a couple of minutes, what would the Second Gate do? His curiosity rose. But this time it was tempered by caution. He didn't immediately want to test it.
He knew his current body was already compromised by the poison. Opening the Second Gate while still recovering could turn an experiment into permanent damage.
He thought about Tadashi's diagnosis. His pathways were scarred. His chakra circulation was still recovering. His Yin-Yang balance remained delicate.
The First Gate had temporarily overwhelmed those limitations. But the Gate hadn't repaired them. It had simply forced his body to operate despite them.
He recognised the danger. His body was currently less tolerant of abuse than a healthy shinobi's. Therefore, he might actually pay a higher price for the same Gate than someone properly trained in the technique.
He looked down at his shaking hands.
The earlier exhilaration was gone. He now understood why the Eight Gates had such a terrible reputation. It wasn't because shinobi were incapable of using them. It was because the technique offered something incredibly valuable in exchange for something equally valuable.
Performance now. Recovery later.
And with higher Gates: greater performance, greater damage, greater recovery, greater risk.
He realised the technique wasn't a trump card. It was a gamble.
After several minutes, Satoru decided he needed to move. He placed both hands against the tree and pushed himself upright. His legs shook immediately. He waited. He took one step. Then another. His balance wavered. He caught himself against the trunk again.
He didn't rush.
This became another experiment. How quickly could he recover basic mobility after closing the Gate?
He slowly moved around the clearing. Simple movements. Walking. Raising his arms. Rotating his shoulders. Bending his knees.
Everything was sluggish. His muscles protested. His headache remained.
But he was functional.
That distinction mattered to him. He wasn't injured beyond movement. He was simply exhausted. This gave him another data point: the First Gate hadn't crippled him, but it had temporarily reduced him to something approaching combat ineffectiveness.
He remembered that he had approximately a month away from normal duties. He now realised that month was even more important than he thought. He needed to recover properly. He needed to understand how much the First Gate actually cost him. He couldn't simply keep opening it repeatedly.
His training plan changed. Recovery first. Controlled activation. Controlled duration. Controlled shutdown. Recovery monitoring. Only then progression.
He retrieved the Eight Gates scroll. He reread the sections concerning the Second and Third Gates. The information became increasingly incomplete. The First Gate was detailed and understandable. The Second Gate had enough information to attempt eventually. The Third Gate was incomplete, with important details missing. The Fourth and beyond were barely more than references.
His expression became increasingly dissatisfied.
The Uchiha repository wasn't enough.
He considered what he actually needed. Not another scroll. Not another theory. Someone who had personally used the Gates. Someone who understood how activation felt, how to control duration, how to recognise dangerous thresholds, how to recover, how to progress from one Gate to another, and how to train the body to withstand the consequences.
The answer became obvious.
He remembered Shisui's words: the son of the Eternal Genin.
He knew exactly who that meant.
Might Guy.
The name carried a strange reputation in Satoru's mind. A taijutsu specialist. A jōnin. The Green Beast of Konoha. Someone who apparently treated physical training as a personal religion. Someone who had devoted his entire shinobi career to a discipline most clans overlooked.
He immediately thought of reasons Guy might refuse. Satoru wasn't one of Guy's students. He was a chūnin. He was associated with the Yamanaka clan. His fighting style wasn't primarily taijutsu. Guy was presumably busy with his own squad and missions. Asking a jōnin to teach him an obscure and dangerous technique might sound insane.
He paused.
Then mentally responded: Yes. And?
If Guy refused, nothing changed. If Guy agreed, Satoru gained access to knowledge he couldn't acquire from the scroll.
He became particularly focused on the Third Gate. He didn't want to open it yet. That was precisely why he needed Guy. The First Gate was relatively straightforward once he understood the principle. The Second Gate might be manageable from the scroll. But the further he went, the more dangerous the technique became. The margin for experimentation became smaller.
He concluded that he could experiment with the early Gates. He shouldn't experiment blindly with the later ones.
He slowly straightened despite the lingering fatigue. His body protested. He ignored the discomfort, not recklessly, but enough to remain standing. He looked toward Konoha.
His decision became clear. He would continue studying the First Gate. He would eventually attempt the Second Gate himself. But before seriously progressing beyond that, he would find Might Guy.
He didn't need Guy to teach him everything. He needed someone who could tell him where the scroll stopped being trustworthy.
As he began walking home, his thoughts turned darker.
He remembered Sasori. The empty, emotionless eyes. The Kagerō Scroll disappearing into enemy hands. His teammates being killed or injured. Kōichi losing the use of his hand. The reality that his enemies were becoming stronger faster than he was.
The world wasn't going to wait for him to finish recovering. He needed options. The Eight Gates were dangerous, but so was being unprepared.
He muttered to himself, dryly: "So... I need to meet the Green Beast."
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